“Firth of Fifth” by Genesis

"Firth of Fifth" sits third on Selling England by the Pound, Genesis's 1973 album, and its title plays on the Firth of Forth, the River Forth's estuary in Scotland. Tony Banks wrote most of the music, starting with the classical-style grand piano introduction in B flat, and it very nearly landed on Foxtrot: he had the bulk of it by 1972, saw it rejected for that album, and reworked it until the band took it for Selling England.

It moves through three distinct sections, with Peter Gabriel singing and playing flute and Steve Hackett's big guitar solo built on a flute melody Banks composed. Banks wrote the words with Mike Rutherford, about a river that never stops changing, and later ranked them among the worst he ever had a hand in. The band kept playing it live, whole or in pieces, for the rest of their career.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.